


His Friend

by aceofhearts88



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Clint Barton Friendship, Captain America: Civil War Trailer, Civil War (Marvel), Friendship, Inspired by the trailer, Pep Talk, but no spoilers for it, just something that shot into my head for whatever reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 02:05:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6219391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofhearts88/pseuds/aceofhearts88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint gives a pep talk in the night in an abandoned warehouse. And Bucky feels hope again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SamanthaB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaB/gifts).



> Gifting this work to Sammy for reasons. If you want to know, sweetie, you know where I am.

"Hey."

Clint looked away from the deserted street outside the window and turned his head to look up at James approaching him from the left side of the walkway. The warehouse they had holed themselves up in for now, it wasn't exactly the worst kind of place Clint had ever hidden in, but comfort and safety was not something he could really find in this place. But it was deserted, at the end of a long narrow road, and it looked abandoned enough to not be suspicious, just the place they needed to stay low for a couple of days, just to gain back some energy.

Fighting was exhausting.

Fighting your friends...well...former friends, it was draining energy more than he was able to get back.

If he strained his ears and really focused he could still hear Sam and Steve arguing instead of sleeping, "They keeping everyone awake?" Clint asked as James sat down across from him in the window niche that overlooked the entire courtyard, knees drawn up to his chest.  
"No, Wanda and Scott are out. Sam pulled Steve further back from them." Barnes explained in a tired voice and leaned his face against the glass, shadowed blue eyes looking up at the stars.

"And you? Why aren't you asleep?" Blue eyes flickered over to him and Clint wondered just when in the last weeks he had learned to read James Barnes that easily. Suddenly the bone deep exhaustion was written all over that pokerface, and Clint had to ask himself just what this would end up doing to him if it tore a super-soldier down like this.

"Can't. Lying down and closing my eyes? Feels like I'm serving myself on a silver platter right now, and Steve being on edge doesn't help either. Drives me nuts." James explained quietly and Clint hummed in understanding, it had been exactly the reason why Clint had taken first watch tonight even though it had been Wanda's turn.

"How are your rips?" He gave it a shot to bring up the injury the other man has sustained just yesterday when they had nearly been run over by Crossbones' forces again. James shrugged, looking out of the window again.  
"Healing," came the short answer that had Clint raise both eyebrows, pot calling the kettle black, but he surely knew how someone distracting from his own pain sounded.

"Yeah, no, that doesn't work on me, buddy." He replied, letting his voice drip just that little bit with sarcasm, James looked back at him, that scrubby chin hardening in stubborness, "Now, the easy way is you undressing right here, sparing us both a Steve Rogers lecture and giving him one less reason to get even more worried about you. But if you want it the hard way, I'm gonna call for him right now. Your call, man."

Barnes glared, full on laser-would-shoot-you-if-I-could on glare but Clint let stubborness take over and glared right back. Barnes had gotten hurt throwing himself in front of Wanda and him, Clint had all reason to get into his business in this.  
"Fine." James grumbled after a moment and his hands started unclasping and unbuttoning the kevlar jacket, "If you want to see me naked that badly, Barton."

"Yeah, dream on, Scruffy." Clint quipped right back, crossing his arms over his chest to keep his hands from, you know, reaching out and help. It wasn't like this would be the first time, he had stitched the other man up after all, had moved and travelled with him in close quarters in the last weeks, still didn't mean he couldn't appreciate what he saw.

The jacket came off and the two shirts below it as well, leaving James shirtless as he shifted his legs over the edge again and hunched over with the metal arm pushed back to brace himself against the window. The position gave Clint a good look at the three gashes he had sewed together only yesterday, flesh an angry pink, healing but also strained, rubbed raw by the fabric of thick shirts.

"We need to bandage that, or you'll pull them open again." Clint mumbled and carefully prodded at one of the stitches, James hissed immediately and the metal plates on the arm whirred, "Hey, easy, okay, easy." Clint soothed quickly and set a calming hand on the other man's shoulder, "If you're that sensitive to the pain, we really need to bandage this." He made his opinion clear, jumping to his feet, "Or you know, x-rays, professional help, no relying on pure healing abilities for once like a normal sane person would. Not every doctor is out to kill us, but we are certainly going to kill us ourselves without proper medical attention."

A hand grabbed his wrist and Clint stopped his endless rambling to look up into haunted blue eyes, "Sorry, " he apologized, "My nerves are really not the best right now, even less so when my friends are throwing themselves in the way of danger for me again."  
"Wanda told about her brother...after you...flipped out on me yesterday." James told him and Clint chuckled in a light hysterical note shortly, that had not been a pretty moment but his head had completely given out on him.

All he had seen was James motionless on the ground, bleeding, so still, and his heart had stopped.

"Yeah, let's not talk about that. Keep an eye on that road for me, I'll be right back."

\--

James was a better patient than Steve, a thousand times better, Clint didn't want to think about the real reason on why he could sit so incredibly unmoving through anything, preferred to write up to sniper skills. But it came in handy, yesterday with the stitching, and today in taping him up.  
"Alright, I'm done, but keep an eye on this." Clint gave the order as he pulled away again, grabbing the discarded shirts from the window ledge and holding them out for Barnes to take.

"I will, I promise. Thank you," came the silent response and Clint huffed, he really needed some sleep to get into a better mood, he turned away to close their improvised first aid kit again when James made a grab for his wrist once more. Tugging until Clint looked back at him, "I don't regret it, you know, I would do it all over again if it means you don't get hurt. You're a good man, Clint, Steve needs people like you around."

Clint closed his eyes for a moment, and then chose to not bite back his comments again and decided to be painfully blunt with him for once. Putting all attention on blue eyes.  
"I'm gonna be brutally honest here for a second, but I need you to understand this. If you die, Steve will go down a path that none of us, that no one will be able to save him from. He won't be able to go through that a second time, so don't play with your life like this. Don't think it isn't worth anything, because, right now, buddy, you being here, you being alive? That is the only reason why I still have hope that this doesn't have to end in disaster."

"I'm not going to stop having this team's back. If it means keeping Steve safe, I would anything, even if it means giving my own life. He is the only thing I have left, there is nothing else for me." James spoke out, voice quiet but steady and those eyes so lost, Clint found himself holding that face between his hands before his brain really caught up with him moving.  
"That's not right. You got friends, you just don't want to let yourself see, because you're afraid of losing everything again, but we're not gonna let it happen. This is a team, Barnes, we stick together. And if anyone out there dares to take you again, they'll have to go through me and my arrows, and I'd like to see them try. You're my friend, I've lost too many of those lately, I'm not gonna let them take another one." His outbreak was met with utter silence, James stared up at him, wide blue eyes full of shock and Clint almost felt sorry for that emotional unloading.

Almost.

James tried to look away after a few seconds and Clint could feel the pulse under his fingers speed up, he pressed his fingertips harder against that jawbone.  
"No, look at me. I'm not letting you go until you understand. A lot of shit happened to you, to Steve, to Stark, to this whole fucking world, but none of it is worth giving up over. No one will ever understand just what you went through, but this right now? The damn witch hunt? The guilt? That screaming longing for all of this to end, to stop hurting? I know how that feels, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. You're not alone, you are not fighting alone."

Barnes' eyes flashed once, twice, something falling over his face that wasn't that endless pit of dark exhaustion, that wasn't the gut wrenching pain of seeing Steve this lost. And for the very first time Clint got to see what hope looked like on James Barnes' features, and he pressed on, led by complete instincts by then.

"This will have an end, we're gonna get through this. We'll find a solution, find a way to have Steve and Stark see reason. This nightmare is going to end, I promise you that. We just have to fight a little longer. Can you do that? Not for Steve." Clint cut off what could have tumbled from dry chapped lips, "Not for him, not for me, not for Wanda, Scott or Sam. Can you fight for yourself? Just a little bit longer?"

"I don't know." Bucky confessed, and what had that happened, when had James turned into Bucky into Clint's head. Well, probably around the same time that the stoic facade had broken right in front of him, because this man was no longer that stubborn invincible fool, this was a tired man who didn't know how to go on anymore and wasn't that something Clint knew oh so well himself.  
"You're not alone, Bucky. You got people who care about you, care about you being save and happy. As long as there is a world left, there is a future, a reason to live on for. Even if it is just seeing the sun rise up one more time. I have a wife, and three kids, but I'm not only pushing on for them. I want this madness to end, I want to start repairing what has been broken, but until I have to fight to not lose the chance to do just that."

"Fight before fixing." Bucky said quietly and Clint nodded at him, giving the smallest of smiles, "You should take over the pep talks, Steve sucks at them now."  
"Yeah, but that's only in comparison to my holy glory." Clint joked and though he didn't laugh, Bucky's lips twitched into a crooked grin for a split second, a success in Clint's eyes, who dropped his hands again and took a step back.

"Thank you." Bucky whispered and Clint smiled stronger, "Come on, lean back, close your eyes a little. I got your back." He said and waited until Bucky had shifted into one corner of the ledge again, head and knees leaning against the window, before sitting down on it himself once more, legs stretched out. They fell into silence again, but this time it felt less choking, lighter, a little more comfortable.

He kept his eyes fixed on the courtyard, the road and the sky again, but paid attention to Bucky as well, and within minutes he sensed his breathing calming and muscles relaxing. And then breaths evened out and Bucky slumped a little more against the glass still, his flesh hand loosely wrapped around Clint's left ankle, and then he was asleep.

The moonlight made him look young and defenseless, neither of which he really was, but Clint's eyes had always seen past the masks in people, had always managed to find the true core of a person. And this man the media was calling a ruthless murderer, a psychopath that needed to be locked up? This man was a scared boy, exhausted, tired and in pain, a boy who just wanted to hide away from everyone and live the rest of his life in peace.

Bucky Barnes was drowning in guilt, but Clint would not stop fighting until he saw what good there still was to see in the world, to see in himself. 

Bucky Barnes was a Barton stray now.

And everyone who wanted to hurt him should stay back, or wake up with an arrow in their eye. Clint would not let them take him again, he would never again let the government lay a finger on him. His teammate.

His Friend.


End file.
